User:Oskykins/Responsible use

They argue that drug users must understand and educate themselves on the effects and legal status of the drug they are taking, measure accurate dosages, and take other precautions to reduce the risk of overdose when taking drugs where an overdose is possible. If possible, chemically test all drugs before use to determine their purity and strength. As well, they argue that drug users should avoid driving, operating heavy machinery, or otherwise situate themselves directly or indirectly responsible for the safety or care of another person while intoxicated. When taking hallucinogenic drugs, they suggest that a user have a trip sitter (or "copilot"). They also propose some ethical guidelines, such as; a person should never trick or persuade anyone to use a drug; a person should not allow drug use to overshadow other aspects of their life (i.e. financial and social responsibilities); a person should be morally conscious of the source of the drugs that a person is using.

Duncan and Gold suggested that responsible drug use involves responsibility in three areas: situational responsibilities, health responsibilities, and safety-related responsibilities. Among situational responsibilities they included concerns over the possible situations in which drugs might be used legally. This includes the avoidance of hazardous situations; not using when alone; nor using due to coercion or when the use of drugs itself is the sole reason for use. Health responsibilities include: avoidance of excessive doses or hazardous combinations of drugs; awareness of possible health consequences of drug use; avoiding drug-using behaviors than can potentially lead to addiction; and not using a drug recreationally during periods of excessive stress. Safety-related responsibilities include: using the smallest dose necessary to achieve the desired effects; using only in relaxed settings with supportive companions; avoiding the use of drugs by injection; and not using drugs while performing complex tasks or those where the drug might impair one's ability to function safely.

Illegality causes supply problems, and artificially raises prices. The price of the drug soars far above the production and transportation costs. Purity and potency of many drugs is difficult to assess, as the drugs are illegal. Unscrupulous and unregulated middle men are drawn, by profit, into the industry of these valuable commodities. This directly affects the users ability to obtain and use the drugs safely. Drug dosaging with varying purity is problematic. Drug purchasing is problematic, forcing the user to take avoidable risks. Profit motivation rewards illegal sellers adding a cutting agent to drugs, diluting them; when a user, expecting a low dose, procures "uncut" drugs, an overdose can result.

Scales

I wouldn't trust them for measuring literal milligrams. At lowest I'd trust them to 10mg. Simply breathing on them when the enclosure is open can send them off +/- 30mg. Vibrations on the bench can throw them off. Centrifuging on the high-speed machine across the room is noticeable.

Simple things like make sure there are no windows open, a steadys solid surface, place an extra weight and then add your substance, etc.

The weight and the substance need to be together on the scale. So:

Empty scale

Mark it zero

Add weight and note the result

Add substance and note the result

Calculate delta mass

Use the scale to get as close as you can and dissolve it in a good amount of solvent. The error in the initial weighing will be distributed between each dose you draw from the solution. This is the safest and most effective method. Never try to weigh milligrams.

Basically if you're looking to accurately measure to the 1mg range, you going to have to spend thousands for a great scale. Anything below that you will be getting a strain-gauge based scale, which really can't guarantee readings accurate to 1mg.

You're not going to find a balance under $500 that can weigh 2mg accurately, and that's if you get extremely lucky on the used market. JHoppa

The ones that are TRULY accurate within a mg are extremely pricey, usually used by institutions or professionals.

bluelight:Those things are off by about 2-6mg every time. Its good for measuring things where the dose isn't as sensitive but I wouldn't try it for anything else.

erowid: Tragic accidents, including freak-outs, trips to the emergency room, and even deaths, can result from inaccurately measuring doses. Crystalline materials differ in how "fluffy" they are; the volume of the same mass of material can vary dramatically and even with careful eyeballing, mistakes of 10-30 milligrams are common. One's life, health, and sanity depend upon accurate measurment. There are few things more horrible than accidental overdoses of psychedelic drugs. Note that because a vendor sells a packaged chemical marked as 1 gram, it is not reasonable to assume that's the mass of the contents. Many vendors intentionally or unintentionally do not weigh their products carefully. (https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/research_chems/research_chems_faq.shtml)

erowid: By using a liquid measurement technique, it is possible to use a 30$ scale and still measure accurately to only a few milligrams.

erowid: Some people figure if they buy a quantity of material from a vendor or individual, the amount of material they receive is known. This Is Not The Case. For instance with legal, grey market, or research chemicals, it is not uncommon for a vendor to provide significantly more or less material than the amount ordered. One individual describes ordering 500 mg of a compound only to measure it when it arrived, finding 1000 mg instead. If s/he had assumed that the starting material was 500 mg, and proceeded to use a liquid measurement technique to measure individual doses, those doses would have been twice as strong as intended. https://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/dose/dose_info1.shtml

NOTE: If you a looking for a digital scale that measures milligrams, it must measure to at least .001g. A milligram is 1/1000 of a gram. A scale that measures to only 0.1g will not measure milligrams accurately.

Xorkoth: If you weigh out, say, 40mg of something on a scale that has, say, +/-3mg accuracy, then your final amount is going to be between 37 and 43mg. For a single dose of something like DOC, this is a vastly unacceptable variation. However if you put that amount in solution at 1mg/mL (or whatever concentration, it's just 1mg/mL makes the numbers easier for examples and is what I generally do so dosing small increments is easier with a 1mL syringe - I can get 100mcg accuracy), then you divide that error across all your doses. So each mL of solution would have between 0.925mg and 1.075mg, which is quite an acceptable variation for nearly anything (even LSD, where .1mL would be between 92.5mcg and 107.5mcg). And yes, to the above post, scales tend to get more accurate the more you put on them to start, until you get close to the max. For this reason, I always put the weighing tray and sometimes even an additional card or something on mine before weighing, without taring. Let's say it reads 5023mg with the tray/etc on it... then if I wanted to weigh out 15mg, I'd put substance on until the scale read 5037mg. And I always measure a few times to make sure the first one was right.

Instruction manual

Never load the scale with more than the maximum capacity. Overloading the scale will permanently damage it!

Keep your scale in a clean environment. Dust, dirt, moisture, vibration, air currents and a close distance to other electronic equipment can all cause an adverse effect on the reliability and accuracy of your scale.